By |September 15, 2014

Environmental groups are suing the U.S. Department of Transportation over the shipment of crude oil in older railroad tank cars. The lawsuit follows a series of arguments, complaints and regulation changes over the past few months regarding safety rules and industry secrecy, which Inside Energy investigated during the summer.

By |September 3, 2014

There are plenty of similarities in the ongoing fracking debate in Texas and Colorado, but the parallels end when it comes to how oil companies and politicians are dealing with the public’s questions. While concerned residents and anti-fracking groups fight to regulate or ban fracking, oil companies in each state have responded in their own way, as Zain Shauk and Bradley Olson reported for Bloomberg Business Week:
In Texas, drillers are doing their noisy in-your-face fracking as usual. Meanwhile, on a small farm about an hour from the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the oil industry is giving fracking a makeover, cutting back on rumbling trucks and tamping down on pollution. Of course, the fracking battle is not limited to these two states. Various cities and counties across the country have passed 430 measures to ban or restrict the practice, according to Food and Water Watch.

As states ready for the Obama Administration to release new carbon emissions regulations next week, a major question looms: What’s the most sensible way to measure and compare greenhouse gas production? Two states dwarf all others when it comes to sheer amount of carbon dioxide released: Texas and California. Texas is such a carbon giant that it accounts for 12% of U.S. emissions and produces nearly twice as much as the next closest state, California. This graph shows 2011 carbon dioxide emissions based on Energy Information Administration (EIA) data:

But there’s more than one way to slice and dice emissions data. Looking at carbon dioxide produced per dollar earned by industry, the story changes: Wyoming tops all states in carbon emitted per dollar earned, followed by West Virginia and North Dakota.

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A collaborative journalism initiative among public media, with roots in CO, WY, and ND. Funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, our mission is to create a more informed public on energy issues by inspiring community conversations. Learn more about how Inside Energy is funded.

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